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Ben Down has been down in Lagrange Texas most all his life. He didn’t get out much as a kid, he worked the oil rig with his grandfather (his dad died when he was born) to make enough money to put food on the table. All his life he worked in the hot Texas sun with his twin brother Phil and Grandpa Down. In his spare time he learned how to play guitar. He met an old blues man named Bob Johnson from Mississippi that was hiding from what he called “Hell Hounds”. Old Robert taught him to play the blues like the devil owned his soul. He also made him sign a contract in his own blood. To this day Ben don’t know what that contract was for, but he sure can play the blues!
That day his grandfather left for Alaska to become a buddist agriculturist. He never heard from him again. His mother was still in the insane asylum in Austin so the boys were on their own for the first time.
Being 10 years old in Lagrange was hard enough without the fact that their family were all dead or missing. Phil fell heavily into drug abuse and Ben over indulged in alcohol. They were out of money, food and shelter by the time they were 12 years old. Ben hopped on a cow and rode it to Austin. He got a job playing guitar in a filthy Mexican resturaunt on the edge of town. He got one meal a day and all the Cerveza he could swallow. He stole a car and went back to get his brother who was sleeping at the mission. It didn’t take long until he got Phil up on the songs he was playing. The two of them had a sound like no other set of brothers. They lived the blues and knew what it was like. They changed their names and went on to become a couple of the most well known and respected blues men in the music business.
Now for the first time in 45 years, The Down Brothers and reunited and are releasing their CD “Syndrome”. The lost recordings they made in the insane asylum in Austin while visiting their mother. They were 14 years old when these recordings were made but you can hear the pain they were feeling.
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| Funky Blues written on a tour in Seattle, 1975. |
CD: Syndrome
Label: Out West Records
Credits: Ben Down, Phil Down |
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